"Best Dwarf Warriors for 28mm games..." Topic

Can anyone recommend the best Dwarfs made for 28mm gaming?

Im looking primarily for Dwarves in armor with a wide variety of weapons.

Cheers.

For price balancing quality, I think Harlequin's dwarfs (now available from Black Tree) are actually pretty nice. I also like the ex-Vendel dwarfs.

Damon.

I liked the old grenadier ones, chunky if a little basic.

Take a look at hassle free. I have a few of their Dwarf figures and they are very nice. Well proportioned head to toe. And they look tough.

link

That was just an example. If you look at their main page for Dwarf fantasy page, you will see a lot of other cool stuff.

Matthew

I like the old Vendel Dwarves

from Sgt Major Miniatures sgmm.biz/Dwarves_c_66.html

If you are looking for "Warhammer-Esque Dwarves" then Avatars of War have some neat looking regiments coming up

Both Hasselfree and Vendel look like they will do nicely. Any idea how they match up together?

I actually quite like the plastics by EM-4, and you can't beat the price.

link

G

I liked the Ghost dwarves the ones I have have lots of character

Avatars of War or Reaper would be the first places I'd look.

Red-Box Games.

link

The West wind dwarves are large but have more variety then anyone out there and are superb sculpts!! Also, as mentioned above the ghost dwarves are excellent with alot of variety and inexpensive.
Regards
Russ Dunaway

There is also the ones from Mantic Games.

A tad smaller than GW's but look far better.

Plus they are far, far cheaper.

"Look Far Better" is quite subjective for mantic

Their dwarves are quite…odd. Very Chunky

I like the Mantic ones too. Though I would prefer them with round shields. Wonder how easy to change?

I rather like the LOTR ones from GW

I am a big fan of the older GW Dwarves but I gotta say that WestWind makes some beautiful stuff. I have their Dwarves with axes and Dwarves with swords boxed sets. There are 20 figures to a box and no duplicates. I also have their Dwarf Highlanders, also all different.

GW, Westwind and Vendel are great choices!

the new heavily armored dwarfs showed in GW's The Hobbit rulebook look awesome. I think they will be released pretty soon.
and the LOTR range is very good too. Many weapon and armor variants, heroes, plastic and metal… a bit pricey though

The Mantic dwarves are very stylized and very much a love-it-or-hate-it kind of sculpt. Actually wasn't a fan until I held them in my hand, and now I like them quite a bit. Plus they're dirt cheap (the Dwarf army set has like 80 of 'em – warriors with shields, ones with 2 handed hammers, and ones you can assemble with guns or crossbows – plus warmachines for like $70 USD).

If you like very realistic looking ones with proper proportions (no big heads and no big hands), then LotR or Red Box Games. Tre Manor is such a fantastic sculptor and I cannot recommend Red Box Games more highly. They are a bit pricey but it's a one-man operation and they really are tremendous sculpts and full of detail. He is in the process of switching from metal to Trollcast and I've heard some pretty great reviews on it – sharper detail and cheaper costs, so that might be an option to save some bucks when they get redone in Trollcast.

Being a big fan of dwarves I had never heard of Red Box --looked them up --they are very nice but not enough varients at this time for me and one of the keys to dwarves, for me anyway, is the varients --not just the head or weapons but the bodies and movement,etc.

Also --as with many websites I found the Red box very annoying -- I do not know norse or whatever that is?
Regards
Russ Dunaway

I like the LOTR dwarves by Mithril.

Lots of good choices. Thanks for input. GW is too expensive for me so I appreciate the more affordable options.

Nice Dwarf but silly price:
auction

Check out Caesaar's plastics: link. Very affordable, typically $11 USD + S/H, off of e-Bay. They are smaller than most, but they paint up decently, and they are extremely affordable, allowing for massive armies at bargain prices. I really prefer these to most others, beyond their price point, they are actually shorter than Humans, as they should be! YMMV. Cheers!

Can anyone tell me if Hasselfree and Vendel mix well together?

Ill probably be using Vendel as the majority of my Dwarfs with some other brand to flesh out the grunts.

Actually ended picking some old RAFM dwarves and a couple Hasslefree.

That will get me started learning the rules. Later ill flesh out my ranks with Vendel.

Cheers again for all the input.

I've got a heap of the Scibor Dwarves for a gaming project. Lots of really nice individual warriors for fighting whatever foe you have on hand. In my case, it's dragons and more :)

Asgard from Viking forge are my faves. Great minis and great price. Not all of them mind….

link

I'll second Scibor, wish they would produce more

The Asgard have some great character! Much like the old Reaper!

""Look Far Better" is quite subjective for mantic"

Not when you compared to GW's.

link

At least Mantic's Dwarves have knees & legs.

The most amazing thing with the Asgard ones is they are 30 years old!!!!

I picked up some old RAFM dwarves and noticed they are WAY bigger than the GW ones. Can anyone tell me how the Hasslefree and Vendel dwarves match up size wise against the GW and RAFM ones?

Sorry, not "Rafm" but "Reaper" dwarves in above post.

Answered. Saw a picture of Hasslefrees and they loik to be the same size as the LotR's.

You don't need to know Norse to look at the Red Box website. Tre does name his races with a nordic twang, so his dwarves are called Dvergr and his elves are Aelfar, but it is pretty obvious when you look at the figures that they are meant to be dwarves and elves.

And the best dwarves for 28mm are IMHO…

Hasslefree Hasslefree Hasslefree

Hasslefree it is!

Hasslefree are very nice. Far too expensive per individual miniature for constructing an entire army (for me), but you can construct the finest warbands around with their offerings. The order I received was fairly large and the cost per miniature was around $4.25 USD apiece. The multi-part dwarves are excellent: simple and sharp. HDF023, 024, and 025 are my favorites but there's no way I can justify the price for the 20+ of each I need for an army, but there's no finer group in a skirmish game.

I like Black Tree's Dwarves. Many of their products were "not-GW" in style, but in many ways were clearly superior to what GW was selling. Some of my favorites are their King on Throne with Bearers (though I replace the King), organ gun, gyrocopter, and flame cannon. The Dwarf Legion are dwarves in what passes for lorica segmentata and are excellent minis that look fantastic as a unit. The greatbeards are a bit clunky, as are the miners, ironclads, and hammerers, but they make up for it in character once you get them painted and ranked up properly. The regular dwarf warriors, crossbows, and handgunners are great units that fit in nearly perfect with older GW lines. The Gelvarden handgunners, black mountain dwarves, Iron Hills dwarves, and dragon's peak slayers have a totally different appearance from… pretty much everything you'll ever see. They have my favorite drunks and they sell Elvis the Dwarf. From their old Harlequin line section, all of the dwarves are great. And.. they have a 50% sale going on from now until whenever they decide to stop it. I can not and will not vouch for their timeliness of delivery. Instead of using USPS and UPS they use the Flying Dutchman.

Domino's Pizza: If you rub the pieces on the box and then throw them away, the box tastes much better.

Mantic's dwarves have a bit of a back problem. The way they're constructed, they leave some severe and painfully obvious gaps where the two body halves come together. They also tend to look alike and that look takes some getting used to. The aforementioned Dwarf Army box is a good deal. I haven't gotten to the painting stage with mine just yet so I can't say what they'll look like when completed by the world's most mediocre painter.

And I'm still typing away despite knowing you've already made your decision. I just like talking about dwarves.

The Vendel Dwarves now produced by Sgt. Major and they're beautiful figures. They run $1.50 USD apiece and they're excellent. A fellow posted a picture of his army made from that line at the Impetus forums in the fantasy Impetus section and they're so pretty they make angels weep.

Avatars of War will be putting out an entire line of fantasy miniatures. Their limited edition berserkers were fantastic, an I don't own them because the shop that I'd ordered them from decided to give me a refund and kept them for himself. I checked their website and they must have started making them again, as well as another set of dwarf warriors and their always excellent character models. I don't know what the minis are made from… plastic? resin? elephant ivory? Looks like 35 euros for 20 minis.

The EM4 dwarves are, if I recall correctly, the plastics included in the Grenadier boxed set for their wargame back in the late '80s. Great miniatures for the price, though they might be a bit small and lacking in detail for some tastes.